Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, coming before HL2 Episode 3

There exists a videogame software company up in Washington State known as Valve Corporation. There also exists a company from Washington State that produces steamy forum trolls and 4chan memes. The two companies are often times (VST) the same company; today is no different. Valve unleashed a Global Offensive when they announced a new upcoming continuation to their longstanding franchise that is not Half Life 2: Episode 3. The game will be a continuation of their long-standing modern-era franchise and will be titled, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Fans wonder if Valve actually thinks that they already released Episode 3.

(Update Aug 13th 2011 @ 4am: Replaced image to clarify joke 1am: They didn't announce Episode 3 yet... this is just yet another thing they announced before they announce it.)

Global Offensive is set to launch in Early 2012 which should always be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to Valve, Episode 3, but this time-frame looks about legitimate. The game will be available on Xbox Live Arcade, the Playstation Network, and Steam for PC and Mac. Judging by their target distribution model on the consoles it appears as if the release will not in fact be a full-fledged standalone game which makes sense due to Valve’s historical stance on how much content should be provided per dollar; there is even a joke that circulated briefly after the release of the Orange Box that Valve needs to round out the bottom of their second v. Valve promises that the game will contain both new and updated content with de_dust explicitly named as being in Global Offensive. No word on hats.

I'm scared about this game also coming out for the PS3 and Xbox 360... I hope that those will be PC ports, and not the opposite. Also, I hope that they don't dumb down the PC version in any way just because it will be a multyplatform game.